AndhraNews.Net - Innovative marketing schemes for freight services by Indian Railways

New Delhi: June 1, 2004

The innovative marketing strategies for freight services have helped the Indian Railways carry more revenue earning freight in 2003-2004. The total freight traffic was 557.39 Million Tonnes (MTs), which was higher than the upwardly revised target of 550 MTs and the original target of 540 MTs.

The innovative schemes involved freight classification for certain high rated commodities like Petroleum Oil and Lubricant (POL), iron and steel, cement and soda ash reduced by 4-10 per cent, offering of graded concessions for short lead traffic, giving a freight rebate of 2 per cent to premier customers for incremental earnings of Rs. 5 crores and above on commodities classified over class 135, and giving train load rate to rakes on two point destinations.

Other marketing strategies include clubbing of consignments encouraged by permitting the issue of maximum of 12 Railway Receipts on levy of a documentation charge of Rs. 100 for each additional Railway Receipt, reduction in �To Pay Surcharge� from 15 per cent to 10 per cent for coal and 10 per cent to 5 per cent for other commodities, and reduction in requirement of bank guarantee for availing Cheque-cum-Credit Note facility.

Development of rail side warehousing complexes for providing seamless door-to-door transportation in association with the Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) is yet another marketing strategy to augment freight traffic. Buoyed by the success of rail side warehousing complexes Whitefield, Bangalore, the Railways are building 22 such complexes in collaboration with the CWC across the country.

The rationalization of freight structure has resulted in the reduction of the number of classes to 27 from 59 and the ratio between the highest and the lowest freight rates stands reduced from 8 to 2.8. Besides, there has been no increase in freight rates for any commodity during 2003-2004.

Lot of innovative marketing strategies resulted in attracting more freight traffic.

Press Release: PIB

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